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The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/Distinct_Ad2349 on 2024-09-24 22:27:30+00:00.

I wanted to warn everyone of a check washing incident that happened to both me and my sister in law. If you don’t know what check washing is, apparently crooks who steal checks can remove the ink somehow and replace the characters and figures on the checks.

In April both me and my sister in law paid our quarterly property taxes by mail. We both delivered the mail directly to the postman.

Fast forward 2 1/2 months and I get a new bill saying that I owe money for the last quarter. I checked my account previously and didn’t see any suspicious amounts. I later looked at the photocopy of the check that my bank made and saw that someone had altered the name of the payee, but nothing else then cashed the check. The exact same thing happened to my sister in law. The names were hispanic sounding names and these incidents happened in NY.

I contacted my bank Citizens to explain the situation, but they denied my claim. Then I contacted the CFPB, the claim got escalated higher up, but was again denied. The reason they said was that you have to catch and report the fraud within 30 days. I explained to them that I didn’t catch the fraud because the amount wasn’t altered and I didn’t get any letter from the government saying that I owed money so didn’t know until I received my next quarterly bill, obviously more than 30 days later. My sister in law, who is with Citibank, says that their policy is 90 days, so she submitted a claim and is still awaiting a judgement.

I called the Citizens Fraud Dept. and asked whether they can track the account to which the check was deposited to and the lady who spoke to me said that the person who cashed the check did it at a Citizen’s branch and didn’t need/have an account to immediately get the funds. I was surprised that they would allow this to happen. So basically anyone can just create a fake ID, wash a stolen check, cash it without ever having an account and then they get away scot free. Ridiculous.

So lessons to be learned from this:

!) Do not use checks as a payment whenever possible. I was not aware that check washing even existed. Use online payments, bank wire, pay over the phone, etc. whenever those options exist. If you have to use a check, make sure to take a photocopy of the check and check your accounts at least weekly to make sure the payee is correct when the check is deposited. If there is fraud, you should report it immediately. Every bank has a different fraud reporting period and this can change when they mail you new terms of agreement. It can range from 2 weeks to 90 days, but apparently 30 days is the most common.

2. Do not use USPS whenever possible. They are being targeted both inside and out. Crooks have been robbing postmen of their keys, stealing mail from boxes, even the entire mailbox itself, and there have been cases of postal workers stealing mail, basically an inside job.

This horrible incident cost me several thousand dollars and hopefully this post will save you from being scammed. If anyone also knows whether there is still any possible way to reclaim even a portion of the lost funds, please let me know.

Thank you for your attention!